Friday 12th September 2025 ~ Issue 28

Child Safety Statement

School Values

Treat others the way you would like to be treated.

Respect Our School - Hormati Sekolah Kita

Do Your Best - Lakukan Yang Terbaik

Help Others to Succeed - Bantu Teman Untuk Berhasil

Important Dates

TERM 3

Wednesday 17th September - St Mary's School Concert at Hamilton PAC 

Thursday 18th September - Last day of Term 3 - 3.15pm finish

TERM 4

Monday 6th October - First day of Term 4

Thursday 16th October - Catholic Social Teaching Day - details to come

Friday 17th October - Mission Day - details to come

Tuesday 4th November - Melbourne Cup Holiday

PUPIL FREE DAYS IN 2025

Friday 19th September - Structured Literacy

ADVANCE NOTICE

Wednesday 17th December - Last day of the school year for students

From the Principal

Dear Families,

Another extremely busy week at St Mary's! Between State Netball, Hoop Time, table tennis, Learning Showcase, Learning Conversations and concert practice, we have been flat out! Congratulations to all our students for the wonderful way they participate in the many fantastic opportunities that come their way.

Thank you so much to everyone who responded to our survey about our student leadership. We had an excellent response and the overwhelming feeling is that we will stay with the current model of having a boy and a girl captain in 2026.

Our concert is just days away and the excitement is building! Please read more about what Tuesday and Wednesday look like further on in the newsletter.

We have two lucky staff members on long service leave, travelling overseas. We wish Shannon Smith and Vicki Fitzpatrick a wonderful time away.  

Have a wonderful weekend, shared with those you love,

Terrielynn

Catholic School Culture

MASS TIMES – 2025                                                 

Hamilton: Saturday 6pm and Sunday 10.30am                                  

Dunkeld: Sunday 8.30am                  

Glenthompson:  Sunday 8.30am

Penshurst: Sunday 8.30am

Learning and Teaching

School Wide Positive Behaviours

School Wide Positive Behaviour Support is:  A multi-tiered framework for establishing the social culture and behavioural supports needed for a school to achieve behavioural and academic outcomes for all students.

For the next two weeks at St Mary’s, we are working with our students on the following:

RESPECT - speak to everyone with respect

SAFETY - play safely with our natural environment eg: sticks

RESPONSIBILITY - learn all you can

Concert!

Concert is almost here!  We are getting very excited and cannot wait to show you all what we have been working on all term. It is very normal for some students to feel a bit nervous about performing.  We have explained that this is a normal emotion to feel when we are preparing for something like this  and it is ok to go out of our comfort zone sometimes.  We have also explained to the students that we wouldn't opt out of maths and writing and this is just the same!  Once they get up onto that stage, they will shine!

On Tuesday, we will be bussed to the PAC for our dress rehearsal.  This is a great chance for the students to see the space and get comfortable in it, in preparation for the show the next day. We will be there for the majority of the day, so it is important that your child/ren get to school on time, so we can leave promptly. Students need to wear their costumes to school on this day - any further information regarding this will be sent through to you via homeroom teachers.

On Wednesday, we will again head down to the PAC for another quick run through, before we perform at 11am. Once the show is finished, if you would like to take your child/ren home for a rest before our evening performance, that is fine.  Please make sure you check in with their homeroom teacher before you go, so we know where they are!

For the night performance, we will need students at the PAC by 6:30pm, so that we are ready to go by 7pm. They will need to arrive in their costume.  Some parts of costumes will be stored at the PAC, and the students will pop those on when they arrive. At the end of the performance, the students will wait in the supper room with their homeroom teacher/s.  Please make sure you tick your child off with their homeroom teacher before you leave - this is a child safety issue.  Thank you!

Thursday is our last day of school for the term, as our staff have a Professional Learning day on Friday.  If you feel that your child/ren are too tired to come into school on Thursday, please feel free to keep them at home and have an early start to the holidays!  A Seesaw message or popping the absence into PAM will still be required though.  Thank you!

If you still require tickets to our matinee, click on this link here to purchase your tickets.  Our evening performance has sold out, but you can still get tickets to the matinee. All limits have been removed, so please purchase what you need.

We are looking forward to a wonderful concert next week!

Sports Catch Up

A full wrap up of a massive two weeks in sport will be coming next week!

Dates for your Diary

TERM THREE

September 

Tuesday 9th September - Grade 3/4 Hooptime @ Hamilton

Tuesday 9th September - Netball Victoria School Championships @ Parkville

Thursday 11th September - WHP Table Tennis 

Friday 12th September - Grade 5/6 Hooptime @ Hamilton 

TBC Primary Golf

Elise Gordon

egordon@smhamilton.catholic.edu.au 

Wellbeing

 Child Safety

Last Wednesday, I attended the webinar, offered by SchoolTV, hosted by Michael Carr-Gregg and Susan McLean.  As I have mentioned before here, both of these people are experts in their fields.  It was a very informative session, where they spoke about the new social media regulations, digital footprint and reputation, screen time and brain development and parental controls. At the end of the session, they sent through a fact sheet with some of the key points that they raised around these areas.  I have attached this fact sheet below. It is well worth a read.

Tania Stevens

Leadership and Stewardship

Kitchen Garden

We had another 3/4 group cooking today. Spring rolls were on the menu, with lots of fresh and healthy ingredients. The students are to be commended on the way they follow the kitchen rules, which are used to keep everyone safe! Thanks again Lyn and Judy for sharing your knowledge...and deliciousness!

Catherine Egan

Community Engagement

St Mary's Christmas Parade

This year our annual Christmas Parade will be held on Friday 5th December.

We have been thinking of what we can do for our raffle - perhaps something big?

We are also looking for lolly donations to make lolly bags to sell at the parade. If you are able to donate, can they please be pre wrapped like chuppa chupps, or lollies in little bags.

If you have any ideas please let us know.

Later in the year we will ask for helpers to assist the coordinators in the above roles and keen bakers to make gourmet gifts to sell (Christmas cakes, biscuits, rum balls etc) at our Gourmet gift stall.

If you have any questions regarding the Christmas Parade please contact Shannon at school.🎄

Assembly

Our next assembly will be on Friday 17th October at 2.55pm.